The Wildfire Raid – Race Day

Posted on28 July, 201828 July, 2018

It was a very early start to get to Kindilan Adventure Camp in Redland Bay. Up at 4:00am and out the door by 4:45am. Catherine and Ella came along for the day to spend some time around Russell Island and Karragarra Island. Met up with Guy at HQ and got our gear sorted, picked up maps and made a plan. It was going to be a quick race with a good chance of the top teams clearing the course. There were about 1800 points up for grabs in six hours.

We set out on a run on the first trek leg at 8:30am with 10 check points (CP) to get. The plan was to go for 7 of them (was removed from the course) and return to HQ for the bike leg. We were back in HQ before 10:00am and quickly changed to the bikes. The bike leg had 17 CPs with the kayak leg half way through. The aim was to leave a couple of the outer CPs and only grab them if we were going better than expected. The bike leg was linear and the CPs had to be checked in order. If you missed one, there was no going back. We got to the kayak leg missing only one CP.

The kayak was in South Moreton Bay with 6 CPs available. As we hit the water, the tide was on the way out and we were going to enjoy some muddy mangroves. We chose to only get the southern CPs and leave the two northern ones. We could make up the points on the bike. We finished the kayak leg in under an hour and washed the mud from our legs and returned to the bikes. We made the wise choice to change shoes for the kayak section!

We head back towards HQ getting as many CPs as we could and only missing one, choosing not to go for it as we were running out of time. There were certainly some fun single track sections with a few trees trying to trip you up, a few close calls there. We got back to HQ with half an hour to spare and the mystery section and the last run leg still to get. While Guy to took some time to stretch, I headed up the tower to complete the mystery discipline – tower jump. That left us with three CPs to get in 20 minutes. We decided on the two closest ones to get back to the finish with 5 minutes to spare.

All in all, a great race. We hit every CP we went for and ended up with 1,430 points. 1st in Mens Veterans, 5th in mens and 14th overall.

ROAR GAELICS Little & Large ready to goThat’s betterHmmmGreat single track – good funYes we had funWe did runI’m sure its straight aheadWaiting for burgers at the endKayaking in the mud